Pedagogical Value Formation Of Students Future Teachers In New Socio-Cultural Conditions

Abstract

In this article the problem of formation of professional pedagogical values of students – future teachers is considered. The reassessment of the system of social values in modern Russia, the change in the nature of the content and functions of pedagogical activity, and other socio-cultural and socioeconomic conditions have actualized the search for new approaches to the formation of professional pedagogical values at the stage of higher education. Methods of research used in this work are: analysis of theoretical sources, classification, systematization, content analysis, a method of modelling. The authors of the article analysed modern socio-cultural and socioeconomic conditions, under the influence of which the external factors influencing the selection of pedagogical values and their hierarchy in the structure of the teacher's personality become more active. With the help of content analysis, students' views on pedagogical values and their hierarchy are studied. The main result of the research was the author's model for the formation of professional pedagogical values. The model provides for the organization of the educational space by integrating the academic, extracurricular, independent, practical, scientific, research, cultural and public activities of students. According to the authors, its implementation will help to systematically form the professional values of future teachers, solving one of the most urgent problems of modern education.

Keywords: Professional pedagogical valuesvalue orientationssocio-cultural conditionssocioeconomic conditionsmodel of formation of pedagogical values

Introduction

The problem of the formation of professional values of future teachers at the stage of university training from the positions of different sciences has always been and continues to be in the center of attention of researchers. The spiritual and moral component of pedagogical activity serves as the basis for the formation of professional culture, determines the humanistic orientation and motivation of the individual. The effectiveness of the teacher, due to the high degree of his/her educational influence on the personality of the child, directly depends on his/her system of value orientations. Therefore, subjectivization of professional values at the earliest stages of the teacher's professional training has always been a top priority. It is the studentship – the period of psychosocial development, when the reaction to social phenomena is particularly acute. And here, young people have a so-called value-normative uncertainty, when the absence of clear ideals and semantic reference points at the level of society, the ambiguous tendencies in the development of Russian statehood lead to distorted ideas about the system of moral demands imposed on representatives of a particular profession. This directly relates to the pedagogical profession, which extremely actualizes the search for new approaches to the formation of professional values at the stage of higher education in the new sociocultural conditions.

Problem Statement

It seems necessary to analyze the specifics of modern socio-cultural conditions in which the formation of professional pedagogical values is taking place and to identify the possibilities of the educational process of a university for their mastering by students-future teachers.

Research Questions

According to modern theoretical sources, in social, psychological and pedagogical studies there is no clear distinction between the concepts of "values" and "value orientations," they are often used as synonyms.

In accordance with Milton Rokich's concept under value orientations, we mean "abstract ideas, positive or negative, not related to a particular object or situation, expressing human convictions about types of behavior and preferable goals" [Rokeach, 1973]. Their formation occurs under the influence of culture of all levels of society: society, collective, group, family, and the mechanism is the contradiction between motives of moral and pragmatic nature.

Values of pedagogical activity by definition of Slastenin are "these features that allow the teacher to satisfy his/her material and spiritual needs and serve as a guide to his/her social and professional activities aimed at achieving socially significant humanistic goals" (Slastenin, Chizhakova, 2003).

The profession of a teacher, perhaps more than any other, requires a clear choice and a clear definition of the teacher's personal values. Education is to a great extent the transfer of the teacher to the pupil himself/herself, his/her own values and relationships, his/her "way of life". In the process of education, such mechanisms as suggestion, imitation, and “infection” are “working”. In addition, pedagogical activity has one more peculiarity: the process of education necessarily includes making judgments about what is important (meaningful, valuable) in life, and what is not, and the transfer of these judgments to pupils.

The de-ideologization of Russian society during the period of "perestroika", the reassessment of the whole system of public values in connection with the turn to a market economy and the endless reform of educational practice have led to the fact that the normative value system under the conditions of sharp social changes cannot keep up with the reality.

Pedagogical values are also involved in this process, while social and pedagogical values increasingly come into conflict with personal values. Competence-based education actualized this problem since the value-semantic component in the structure of competencies (the attitude to the content of competence and the object of its application) is what distinguishes the qualified teacher (and sometimes highly qualified) from a competent teacher. Therefore, it is so important to create favorable conditions for the correct selection and appropriation of professional values by students at the stage of study at the university.

Researchers note that a number of external and internal factors influence the development and formation of value orientations of the individual. External are elements of the micro-environment (membership groups, reference groups and their values) and the macro-environment (the traditional system of universal values, social roles, mass media, social institutions, etc.). Internal factors include age, gender, temperament peculiarities, makings, abilities, leading intra-subject needs, the level of development of self-awareness (Rays, Doldzhin, 2012).

Various factors activate their role in changing sociocultural, economic, political and other conditions.

An analysis of the summary of contemporary conditions affecting the formation of pedagogical values exceeds the scope of our study. Therefore, we give only some of them, which, in our opinion, most significantly influence and can influence in the near future the selection of pedagogical values and their hierarchy in the structure of the personality of the teacher.

First of all, significant changes in the employment of the population should be noted, which necessitates the constant improvement of professional qualifications. For teachers this was reflected in the strengthening of the requirements for their substantive training in the form of passing qualification exams, similar to a single state examination for schoolchildren. Constantly stimulate teachers to acquire knowledge also some limitations in the professional growth of bachelors in comparison with the masters; continuous flow of innovations in educational practice; the introduction of an assessment of the quality of knowledge of schoolchildren in the form of a unified state examination, the results of delivery of which affects the financial well-being of the educational organization, etc. Subject knowledge in these conditions often turns into a goal in and of itself since it directly determines one’s career path and pay.

Further, in our opinion, it is important to change the nature of the content and basic functions of professional pedagogical activity. Researchers believe that at present, it is possible to divide the functions of a teacher into two groups (depending on their orientation): functions aimed at themselves, and functions directed beyond the pedagogical activity itself. "The first can be attributed to the meaning and motivation of their professional activities, including innovative changes in it, self-identification with standard ideas about the profession, the formation of readiness for collegial and partner activities. The second group of functions can be attributed to a direct link with representatives of various social structures, institutions of power, the media; search for effective links with parents; active position in the management processes of the educational institution" (Piskunova, 2005). The teacher – moderator, facilitator, coach, mentor, tutor, adviser – these are the categories with which now describes the pedagogical activity, when they say about changing professional positions and functions in managing independent cognitive activity of students.

The most clearly functional and meaningful changes in pedagogical activity are manifested in the system of distance education, which is gaining more and more popularity. Categories of teachers implementing distance learning are consultants, course authors; teacher-curators; pedagogical coordinators. The separation of professional functions (which used to be done by one teacher) between them, the learning technology itself, which reduces "live" contacts with trainees, reduces, in our opinion, the role of the teacher as a translator of the value content of education, and consequently the requirements for it as a carrier of these values.

We also agree with the position of Tambovtsev, who believes that powerful market incentives can make significant distortions in the behavior of school teachers. He justifiably expresses fears that the commercialization of educational services, namely merit-based payment systems for teachers, focuses them largely on opportunistic behavior ("soft" grading, tips on exams, "pulling" on the passing of tests etc.). The author notes that the teacher's actions are practically unobservable for school principals, and the potential personal benefits are very significant. As for the negative consequences of such behavior for the reputation of the school (its quality) and, accordingly, the financial situation, for an individual teacher they act as long-term and very uncertain in terms of their impact on his personal well-being. Therefore, for economic reasons, such consequences the teacher is unlikely to take into account when choosing their line of conduct in the classroom. (Tambovtsev, 2005). Thus, society itself provides an attitude to replace the teacher's personal values, which, when manifested in motives driven by monetary incentives, change the strategies of his/her behavior. This, according to the author, can negatively affect the quality of education. The considered socio-cultural and socioeconomic conditions, in our opinion, come into conflict with the humanistic educational paradigm and can cause a distorted picture of the value character of contemporary pedagogical activity among students. These reasons also have caused the purpose of the present research.

Purpose of the Study

The aim of the study is to develop a model for the formation of professional pedagogical values of students in the educational process of the university in accordance with the new socio-cultural conditions of modern Russia.

Research Methods

The basic approaches in our study were competence and system-activity oriented to achieve the results of education – competences acquired on the basis of practical experience and independent educational activities of students. The methodological basis also included: the concept of the values of Milton Rokich (Rokeach, 1973) concepts of professional and pedagogical activity (Kuz'mina, 1990, Slastenin, 2008); the concept of a hierarchy of values in different cultures (Schwartz, & Bardi, 2001); modern theory of vocational education and training of teaching staff; studies on various aspects of the formation of values of future teachers (Akin'shina, 2001; Arishina, 2004); research on the relationship of values with behavior and with the personal qualities of people (Bardi, Schwartz, 2003; Roccas et al., 2002); work that examines the impact of teacher values on the formation of the personality of students (Veugelers,  & Vedder, 2003).

Data were obtained using the following research methods: analysis of theoretical sources, systematization, classification, content analysis. The modeling method formed the basis for building a model for the formation of professional values of the future teacher in the educational space of the university.

Findings

At the first stage of our work we studied the ideas about the pedagogical values of the 1st year students studying in the direction of "Pedagogical Education". The sample was determined by the random selection method and amounted to 95 people. Students were asked to write an essay on the topic "Who is the modern teacher?" Processing of empirical material was carried out with the help of content analysis.

In accordance with the classification of pedagogical values (Isaev, 2002), four categories of analysis were chosen: values – goals and values – means that include values – attitudes, values – quality and values – knowledge. Semantic units were specific concepts of values, included in each of the four categories. The unit of account was the number of mentions of a certain semantic unit in the proposals of each student, the percentage of the number of references to the total number of essays examined is taken as the unit of measurement.

The differences in the volumes of the essay were not taken into account, since all were 1.5-2 pages long. Next, the coding matrix was compiled and the procedure for recording the availability of these units of analysis in students' responses was carried out. It turned out that the values of the goal, such as the social importance of labor, a high degree of professional freedom, love of children, creativity, etc. accounted for 76%. The second place in importance belonged to values – relations (individual approach, respect for the personality of the child, etc.) – 74%. In third place were the values – knowledge (possession of modern technologies, the ability to motivate, etc.) – 68%, and the last place was occupied by values – qualities (self-development, image, etc.) – 55%. These data indicate that freshmen basically have an idea of what values a modern educator should have. However, they do not realize the full scope of professional pedagogical values, and, in addition, values – qualities that have the highest value in the hierarchy of values are of the least importance for students.

Further on the basis of analysis and generalization of existing models (Trotskaya, 2015, Chuvatova, 2007), etc., the author's model of the formation of professional and pedagogical values of students – future teachers in the educational process of the university, taking into account modern domestic socio-cultural conditions was developed. The structure of the model is formed by the target, conceptual, informative, organizational-procedural and evaluation-productive blocks.

The target block includes the goal – the formation of professional values of future teachers in the current socio-cultural situation and tasks, namely: the development of the motivation of the value attitude to pedagogical activity; awareness of the personal and social significance of professional and pedagogical values; stimulation of value-oriented behavior, formation of skills of self-development of value-oriented consciousness.

The conceptual block reflects the principles and approaches that serve as the basis for the formation of professional values. Among the principles the most important are: the principle of the humanistic orientation of the pedagogical process; integrity; purposeful, systematic; sequence, activity and independence of the subjects of the educational process. Key approaches are axiological, personal-activity and competence.

The content block of the model forms three components of the process of formation of students' value orientations: cognitive, emotional and activity. The cognitive component is professional knowledge that determines the specifics of the teacher's activity, and involves the identification and realization of the axiological potential of the disciplines of professional and special cycles and pedagogical practice. It forms the attitude of the teacher to the surrounding reality, to the pedagogical system and its center – to the person; allows us to productively construct interactions: "teacher-student," "student-student," "teacher-parents," and so on. The emotional component is manifested in the formation of specific sensory attitudes of the teacher to various aspects and objects of pedagogical activity through the manifestation of emotional reactions and states. The activity component determines the ratio of values, their hierarchy and stimulates the corresponding actions and attitudes on the basis of the established system of values [Astashova, 2015].

A complete system of students' value orientations is implicitly formed in the process of mastering certain competences presented in the federal state educational standard of higher education (FSES HE 3+) in the direction of preparation "Pedagogical Education" (bachelor's degree) (Federal'nyj obrazovatel'nyj standart vysshego obrazovanija po napravleniju podgotovki 44.03.01 pedagogicheskoe obrazovanie (bakalavriat). Table 1 lists the competencies that are most relevant to the process, and the corresponding groups of pedagogical values.

The organizational and procedural block of the model includes the necessary conditions, effective forms, methods, means and technologies for its implementation. The number of necessary conditions for the implementation of the model is as follows: actualization of the axiological content of the educational process; strengthening the role of practical classes using active teaching methods and practice-oriented technologies; development of the emotional-sensual sphere of students; interaction of the cognitive, emotional and activity components of the system of value orientations; implementation in the educational process of a productive, person-oriented, activity-based approaches. An important condition is also the participation in the process of preparing future educators potential employers as bearers of group pedagogical values.

Organizational forms include problematic lectures, seminars, round tables, conferences, discussions, debates, business games, independent work, etc. The prevailing methods are: research, heuristic, active teaching methods, a method for analyzing (solving) pedagogical tasks and situations, modeling professional activity, analysis and self-analysis of pedagogical activity, exercises, trainings, diagnostics. Effective technologies are: reflexive, communicative-dialogue, imitation-game, problem-searching, interactive, project.

Estimated-productive block of the proposed model contains evaluation criteria and levels of the formation of professional values, as well as diagnostic tools for their definition. Among the criteria, in our opinion, it is advisable to include: motivation-value (the awareness of the social importance of the pedagogical profession, manifestation of interest in educational, extracurricular, practical activities, readiness for self-improvement based on axiological knowledge); cognitive (knowledge of universal and professional values); emotional-personal (emotional stability, empathy, professional-personal attitude, tolerance, activity, self-development); activity (mastering the skills of value-oriented behavior and activity, communication, ways of solving pedagogical tasks in accordance with the values of the profession, the skills of reflecting one's own activity, the ability to project one's personal and professional growth on a value basis).

These criteria determine the levels of the formation of pedagogical values: low, medium and high. Low level: knowledge of professional values is present, but not personally significant; values of personal achievements predominate; motivated use of professional values is weakly expressed; emotional-personal attitude to axiological knowledge is indifferent; reflexive thinking at a low level; communication skills are difficult. Intermediate level: there is an internal acceptance of professional values; the idea of a hierarchy of values is formed, but the need to act on their basis is weakly expressed; motivated use of professional values is average; reflexive thinking at the middle level; communicative skills are present, but not always manifest at the proper level. High level: axiological knowledge is conscious and is a regulator of value-oriented behavior; there is a consolidation of the value orientation in the quality and direction of the individual; there is an aspiration and ability to project personal and professional self-development on the basis of professionally significant value orientations; motivated use of professional values; reflexive thinking at a high level; developed level of communicative competence.

Assessment methodology which allowed us to determine the level of formation of the value orientations of the future teacher included: methods for studying the motivation for learning in the university and the motives of student learning activities, questionnaire for assessing the ability for self-development (Schwarz questionnaire doe studying personal values), method "Orientation to the values of directive and non-directive approaches in education", the assessment of a communicative setting, emotional empathy, a method for determining the level of the formation of pedagogical reflection; pedagogical observation, discussions.

The author's model for the formation of pedagogical values is presented in Figure 1 .

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Conclusion

The formation of a coherent system of value orientations of the personality occurs under the influence of everyday experience under changing sociocultural and socioeconomic conditions.

According to recent research, the value orientations of teachers are very eclectic, contradictory, sometimes contradictory, the hierarchy of professional values is volatile and uncertain [Orlov, 2006]. Therefore, special importance should be given to the formation of professional value orientations of students at the stage of education in the university. A key condition for the effectiveness of this process is the systemic organization of the educational space that integrates the educational, extracurricular, independent, practical, scientific, research, cultural and social activities of students.

The model of the formation of professional values, developed by the authors of the article, is at the testing stage, which suggests further studies of its effectiveness. The implementation of the presented model, in our opinion, will contribute to the systematic formation of professional values of future teachers, solving one of the most urgent problems of modern education.

Acknowledgments

The work is performed according to the Russian Government Program of Competitive Growth of Kazan Federal University.

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